At the same time as he was composing these great and immortal works, Beethoven was struggling to come to terms with a shocking and terrible fact, one that he tried desperately to conceal. He was going deaf. By the turn of the century, Beethoven struggled to make out the words spoken to him in conversation.

Beethoven revealed in a heart-wrenching 1801 letter to his friend Franz Wegeler, "I must confess that I lead a miserable life. For almost two years I have ceased to attend any social functions, just because I find it impossible to say to people: I am deaf. If I had any other profession, I might be able to cope with my infirmity; but in my profession it is a terrible handicap." At times driven to extremes of melancholy by his affliction, Beethoven described his despair in a long and poignant note that he concealed his entire life.

Dated October 6, 1802 and referred to as "The Heiligenstadt Testament," it reads in part, "O you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you and I would have ended my life -- it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me."

Almost miraculously, despite his rapidly progressing deafness, Beethoven continued to compose at a furious pace. From 1803-1812, what is known as his "middle" or "heroic" period, he composed an opera, six symphonies, four solo concerti, five string quartets, six string sonatas, seven piano sonatas, five sets of piano variations, four overtures, four trios, two sextets and 72 songs. The most famous among these were symphonies No. 3-8, the "Moonlight Sonata," the "Kreutzer" violin sonata and Fidelio, his only opera. In terms of the astonishing output of superlatively complex, original and beautiful music, this period in Beethoven's life is unrivaled by any of any other composer in history.

Despite his extraordinary output of beautiful music, Beethoven was lonely and frequently miserable throughout his adult life. Short-tempered, absent-minded, greedy and suspicious to the point of paranoia, Beethoven feuded with his brothers, his publishers, his housekeepers, his pupils and his patrons. In one illustrative incident, Beethoven attempted to break a chair over the head of Prince Lichnowsky, one of his closest friends and most loyal patrons. Another time he stood in the doorway of Prince Lobkowitz's palace shouting for all to hear, "Lobkowitz is a donkey!"

For a variety of reasons that included his crippling shyness and unfortunate physical appearance, Beethoven never married or had children. He was, however, desperately in love with a married woman named Antonie Brentano. Over the course of two days in July of 1812, Beethoven wrote her a long and beautiful love letter that he never sent. Addressed "to you, my Immortal Beloved," the letter said in part, "My heart is full of so many things to say to you -- ah -- there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all -- Cheer up -- remain my true, my only love, my all as I am yours."

The death of Beethoven's brother Caspar in 1815 sparked one of the great trials of his life, a painful legal battle with his sister-in-law, Johanna, over the custody of Karl van Beethoven, his nephew and her son. The struggle stretched on for seven years during which both sides spewed ugly defamations at the other. In the end, Beethoven won the boy's custody, though hardly his affection.

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Published on Dec 16, 2016
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Published on Dec 16, 2016
This light-hearted, though not lightweight Symphony by Beethoven deviates from Classical tradition in making the last movement the weightiest of the four. We have the historic French conductor Pierre Monteux conducting the Chicago Symphony in this performance from 1961; just 3 years before his death.

Somehow, despite his tumultuous personal life, physical infirmity and complete deafness, Beethoven composed his greatest music -- perhaps the greatest music ever composed -- near the end of his life. His greatest late works include Missa Solemnis, a mass that debuted in 1824 and is considered among his finest achievements, and String Quartet No. 14, which contains seven linked movements played without a break.

Beethoven's Ninth and final symphony, completed in 1824, remains the illustrious composer's most towering achievement. The symphony's famous choral finale, with four vocal soloists and a chorus singing the words of Friedrich Schiller's poem "Ode to Joy," is perhaps the most famous piece of music in history.

While connoisseurs delighted in the symphony's contrapuntal and formal complexity, the masses found inspiration in the anthem-like vigor of the choral finale and the concluding invocation of "all humanity."

Beethoven died on March 26, 1827, at the age of 56. An autopsy revealed that the immediate cause of death was post-hepatitic cirrhosis of the liver. The autopsy also provided clues to the origins of his deafness. While his quick temper, chronic diarrhea and deafness are consistent with arterial disease, a competing theory traces Beethoven's deafness to contracting typhus in the summer of 1796.

Recently, scientists analyzing a remaining fragment of Beethoven's skull noticed high levels of lead and hypothesized lead poisoning as a potential cause of death, but that theory has been largely discredited.

Ludwig van Beethoven is widely considered the greatest composer of all time. He is the crucial transitional figure connecting the Classical and Romantic ages of Western music. Beethoven's body of musical compositions stands with Shakespeare's plays at the outer limits of human accomplishment.

And the fact Beethoven composed his most beautiful and extraordinary music while deaf is an almost superhuman feat of creative genius, perhaps only paralleled in the history of artistic achievement by John Milton writing Paradise Lost while blind. Summing up his life and imminent death during his last days, Beethoven, who was never as eloquent with words as he was with music, borrowed a tag line that concluded many Latin plays at the time. "Plaudite, amici, comoedia finita est," he said. "Applaud friends, the comedy is over."

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Classical Music for Studying and Concentration, Relaxation | Study Music Bassoon InstrumentalJust Instrumental Music

Published on Dec 19, 2016
3 Hours of some of the best classical music for studying and concentration by Antonín Reichenauer. It is the perfect relaxing bassoon instrumental music for studying, concentration, focus memory and better learning and it is also great baroque music to study and concentrate, writing or working in office. Use this classical music for relaxation and reading or as study music for exams and study time.

Thank you so much for watching this video by Just Instrumental Music channel. I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to Subscribe :)

- Music:
"Bassoon Concerto in C major - Reichenauer" performed by Robert Rønnes (musopen.org) (CC BY 3.0)

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Published on Dec 19, 2016
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A 1977 performance is captured here by the great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter as he performs Mozart's piano concerto in B flat major. The Moscow Symphony orchestra is conducted by Kirill Kondrashin, the historic conductor in his own right!

Published on Dec 23, 2016
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Published on Dec 26, 2016
3 Hours of some of the best classical music for studying and concentration by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It is the perfect relaxing instrumental music for studying and better learning to focus and it is also great Mozart music to study to concentrate, writing or working in office. Use this classical music for relaxation and reading or as study music for exams and study time.

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Published on Dec 30, 2016
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Bach Classical Music for Studying and Concentration, Relaxation | Study Music Violin InstrumentalJust Instrumental Music

Published on Jan 2, 2017
3 Hours of some of the best classical music for studying and concentration by Johann Sebastian Bach. It is the perfect relaxing instrumental music for studying and better learning to focus and it is also great Bach violin music with soothing sea wave sounds to study to concentrate, writing or working in office. Use this classical music for relaxation and reading or as study music for exams and study time.

Thank you so much for watching this video by Just Instrumental Music channel. I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to Subscribe :)

Published on Jan 3, 2017
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✔️ Antonio Vivaldi wrote a set of concertos, Op. 10, for flute that were published ca.1728 by Amsterdam publisher Michel-Charles Le Cène
Flute Concerto No. 3 in D major, RV 428 Il gardellino (The Goldfinch)

Bird song caught the ear of Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi. And he even named a 1729 flute concerto for a bird — the goldfinch. The source of inspiration for Vivaldi's Goldfinch concerto, or Il Gardellino, was the European Goldfinch, a tiny bird found throughout much of Europe, where it frequents gardens and roadsides. No wonder Vivaldi found the goldfinch irresistible.

✔️ The TOY SYMPHONY is a musical work with parts for toy instruments.
It was long reputed to be the work of Joseph Haydn,but later scholarship suggested that it was actually written by Leopold Mozart. Its authorship is still disputed, however, and other composers have been proposed as the symphony's true author, including Joseph Haydn's younger brother Michael Haydn, who purportedly contributed movements to the work.
Recent research on a newly found manuscript suggests the Austrian benedictine monk Edmund Angerer (1740–1794) to be the author.

The Sabre Dance is a movement in the final act of Aram Khachaturian's 1942 ballet Gayane. The movement, especially its middle section, is based on Armenian folk music. It is widely considered Khachaturian's most famous work. In 1948 the Sabre Dance became a jukebox hit in the United States. The piece was further made popular by covers by pop artists, first in the US and later in other countries, such as the UK and Germany. Its use in a wide range of films and TV series over the decades have significantly contributed to its renown. The Sabre Dance has also been used by a number of figure skaters. Tom Huizenga of NPR describes it as "one of the catchiest, most familiar—perhaps most maddening—tunes to come out of the 20th century." Billboard magazine calls it "a piece that's known to every pops orchestra in existence."